Battletruck

Synopsis

A Science Fiction Adventure of the Near Future

It’s the 21st century, the Oil Wars have made a mess of the planet and the land outside major cities is lawless. After Hunter comes to the aid of Corlie, who has run away from the villainous Straker, he takes her to the peaceful community of Clearwater. Unfortunately for the citizens of Clearwater, Straker fully intends to get Corlie back.

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Somewhere in the post-apocalyptic New Zealand wasteland, a militia of dudes with a tricked-out semi governs by force. When their commander's daughter runs off with a dirtbike hermit and joins a peaceable if Ratzenberger-centric commune, the totalitarian ruling-with-an-iron-fist gets personal.

Considering the title, this is slower-paced than expected, and strangely somber. Still, its oddball take on the genre is curiously appealing. Do be forewarned that the titular death vehicle is pretty much just an 18-wheeler fitted with some grimy armor and was probably fifth or sixth on the call sheet.

There is a movie out there called Battletruck, a post-apocalypse movie that wouldn't exist without Mad Max existing. It cost $3 million dollars to produce compared to the $400 thousand dollars it took to make Mad Max. The most important takeaway from watching Battletruck is how it provides a new layer of appreciation and perception of the Max films and how successful they truly are. With Battletruck you get to see how watered down and sluggish a carpocalypse flick can be. That's not to say it's necessarily a bad movie. A little boring, a little static, sure. The best thing going for it is just how earnest it is. With very limited resources, the people behind Battletruck come off as…

Often done away as a cheap rip off of Mel Gibson Road Warrior, this low-budget post-apocalyptic movie deserves more love. Filmed at exactly the same time as the Road Warrior, it features a bleak and grim outlook of a world which fell apart after 'the oil wars' and gasoline is extremely scarce and society has crumbled.

The villain, Colonel Starker, is impressive as he can be cordial and friendly towards you and in his next breath may decide to cut your throat. Michael Beck (Swan in the Warriors) is the iconic lone hero, who prefers to live on his own and mind his own business and nothing else.

Definite a recommendation for anyone who shares my love for early 1980's TEOTWAWKI movies. Battletruck a.k.a warlords of the 21th century is a gem

The poor man's Mad Max with a cheesy futuristic motorbike and a badass war rig. I would've loved this movie as a kid, only if I had known about it. Some really cheese ball 80's synth music. There's one great shot of the motorbike gleaming through the desert.

Stars Michael Beck from The Warriors. Cliff Claven is in this! A definite B-movie recommend.

While BATTLETRUCK (aka WARLORDS OF THE 21ST CENTURY) is tailor made to be riffed on MST3K, it is actually better than one would expect a micro-budget knock off of MAD MAX to be. Director Harley Cokliss (as he is credited here) stretches his dollar as far as it can go, making the most of the New Zealand countryside and actually managing to capture some decent stunt work on film. Sure, the script is trash, and some of the acting is less than stellar (a “love” scene in front of a fire place between Michael Beck and Annie McEnroe is a particularly painful example), but the effort on display here deserves a bit of respect.

If this was the movie advertised on the colorful sci-fi-rific poster up there, it would really be something. Unfortunately, this one is just boring, both as a legitimate post-apocalyptic road warrior movie or as a B-movie/unintentional comedy. With the latter, you know it's obviously produced very cheaply and quite possibly sans script, but it's not quite inept enough to be worth the time of a bad movie aficionado. As the former? The colorful moments are few and far between, and the characters are some of the least engaging you're likely to meet. This is definitely a case where the bland title Battletruck fits a lot better than the bitchin' mayhem that could have been Warlords or the Twenty-First Century. The…

This deserves the title of, "Road Warrior rip off," but it apparently had been conceptualized all the way back in 1975, and started shooting before Road Warrior even came out.

Either way, it's a pretty boring and wimpy post apocalypse movie with Michael Beck as a rebellious dirt bike hero named Hunter, who seems to be bitterly channeling his inner anti-social and stoic badass Swan from the Warriors; and James Wainwright as a lovesick Lord Humungus, minus the muscles and the steel hockey mask... and just about everything else that made him a cool character.

Mild Max. This New Zealand entry to the early '80s post-apocalypse movie fad makes the most of its locations and has some pretty cool stuntwork (when it finally comes) but it's a toothless and predictable affair. John Ratzenberger's in it though!